Can I, err, forget to mention my plans to my boss?
It’s risky. Employers need to know where their employees work in case their presence leads to corporate tax obligations abroad. The risk is higher when employees are bringing in revenue for companies, such as in sales positions, said David McKeegan, who co-founded Greenback Tax Services, an accounting firm for U.S. expatriates.
Today in Business
Still, many companies are operating on a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. A science writer in his 50s from California, who was granted anonymity because he did not want senior managers to know he had worked from Costa Rica for a few months, said his human resources department discouraged employees from working outside of California, but did not say anything explicit about working abroad. His setup from an Airbnb by the beach worked perfectly until he lost power because of a hurricane and had to work from a bar a few times. He used his company’s Zoom background, but colleagues started asking about where he was when they heard ocean waves and music. “At a restaurant,” he would tell them, without elaborating.
As more people work from abroad, it may be harder for companies to turn a blind eye. About 10.9 million Americans last year described themselves as digital nomads — people who work remotely and tend to travel from place to place — up from 7.3 million in 2019, according to MBO Partners, which provides services for self-employed workers.
“The tax system globally right now is not prepared for what the work force is going through,” Mr. McKeegan said. “I think at some point we’ll see a system where people are asked on the way in or out if they were working and countries will try and get some more tax revenue from this very mobile work force.”
I want to work remotely while abroad for longer than just a few months. Can I avoid paying U.S. tax altogether?
Potentially. If you qualify for the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion, your first $108,700 is exempt from U.S. income tax. But keep in mind that this applies only if you’re a U.S. citizen who resides in a foreign country for more than 330 days within 12 consecutive months, not including time on planes, or if you are a bona fide resident of a foreign country. (You would still have to pay federal and state taxes on unearned income including interest, dividends and capital gains.)
It is important to track the number of days abroad to be able to prove to U.S. tax authorities that you were there.
Paige Brunton, 30, a Canadian website designer based in Hannover, Germany, learned about how complicated the tax rules are for expats the hard way: One year, she had to file tax returns in three countries. The situation was unavoidable, since she had lived and worked in Germany, Canada and the United States during that tax year, but her biggest advice for others who may have complicated situations is to get an accountant who specializes in international tax right away.
“Don’t congregate in Facebook groups and Google, it’ll really stress you out,” she said.
ROTTERDAM — The Italian band Maneskin celebrated its 2021 Eurovision win by the rock ’n’ roll playbook, with bare chests covered in tattoos, champagne spraying and the thuds of fireworks exploding.
The win was a close and deeply emotional one, with the band’s song, “Zitti e Buoni,” or “Shut Up and Be Quiet,” edging into first place in an exhilarating vote that was ultimately decided by the public. Maneskin barely beat France’s Barbara Pravi, and her chanson “Voilà.” After the victory, an Italian reporter was sobbing as tears streamed down his face.
Capturing what many felt, he said the victory was a fresh start for Italy. “It was a very difficult year for us,” the reporter, Simone Zani, said, talking about the devastating impact of the coronavirus. Explaining through his tears, he said, “We are from the north of Italy, from Bergamo,” an Italian city with record numbers of Covid-19 deaths. “To be No. 1 now, this is a new start for us, a new beginning.”
Eurovision, the largest music contest in the world, is a campy trifle to some, but it celebrates Europe’s cultural diversity and is a reflection of the times we live in. For many outside Europe, the attraction of Eurovision can be hard to comprehend. But a key reason the 200-million plus audience is watching is that there is no cultural mold for the event. Anything goes, and diversity is highly encouraged. The global entertainment business may be dominated by U.S. pop culture, but at Eurovision, 39 different countries can showcase their ideas of music and pop culture with no industry rules other than a three-minute song limit.
Jendrik playing a diamond studded ukulele while being accompanied by a dancing finger. Tix, the singer for Norway, has Tourette’s syndrome. He was dressed in a gigantic fur coat and wearing angel wings, while being chained to four horned demons. “Remember guys, you are not alone,” he said to everyone “suffering” in the world.
The three singers of Serbia’s entry, Hurricane, may have sported the big hair look of American groups of decades past, but despite seeming as if they had bought up most of the hair extensions on the continent, they sang their song, “Loco Loco,” in Serbian.
Nikkie Tutorials. The crowd went wild every time she came onstage or even walked past the corridors.
Dadi Freyr, and other group members, watched from a hotel room as the results came in. Standing in for the missing performers were dolls wearing the band’s outfit, topped with iPads showing their faces. Despite the recorded performance, Iceland landed fourth place.
Duncan Laurence, who had won for the Netherlands in 2019, also contracted the virus and wasn’t able to perform during this year’s finals as is the tradition. The event was canceled in 2020.
Hossein Zenderoudi. Her song dusts off the French chanson, recalling singers like Edith Piaf and Serge Gainsbourg.
Some had criticized her, calling her style of singing out of fashion, but Ms. Pravi strongly disagreed. “You don’t need to make concessions in music,” she said. “You can be absolutely yourself, doing the music you like, say the words you want and being the woman you want to be. And now I am here at Eurovision, the biggest contest in the world.”
Early Sunday morning Ms. Pravi was seen in the dimly lit press center speaking to French reporters who couldn’t believe that their country had come so close to victory, after having achieved almost no Eurovision honors since their victory in 1977.
James Newman, the United Kingdom’s entrant, was nowhere to be found. His song “Embers” had received zero points from both the national juries and the international audience. “It’s Brexit,” said Meg Perry-Duxbury, a Briton living in Rotterdam, sitting next to me in the arena. “Europe doesn’t want us to win.” She herself was supporting Cyprus (another song featuring devils) anyway, Ms. Perry-Duxbury said. “So whatever.”
Eurovision 2021 was an audacious experiment in overcoming the coronavirus — but it was about more than that. What else did it tell us?
Rock ’n’ Roll isn’t dead — in Europe at least
Maneskin’s win with “Zitti E Buoni,” a song filled with off-color lines and lyrics about smoking, was not the only sign of a rock resurgence. Finland’s Blind Channel came in sixth with an angry nu-metal song called “Dark Side,” while The Black Mamba, representing Portugal, came in 12th with “Love Is On My Side,” a piece of classic 1970s rock music that wouldn’t have been out of place in Paul McCartney’s back catalog.
French could be the next language to conquer global pop
For the past few years, Spanish-language pop has surged in the American and European pop charts thanks to acts like Bad Bunny, Rosalía and C. Tangana. Is now the hour for French? On Saturday, Barbara Pravi came second for France with “Voilà” — a traditional slice of chanson that many critics compared to the songs of Édith Piaf. Third place went to Switzerland’s Gjon’s Tears with “Tout l’Univers,” also in French.
Europe hates Britain. (And Germany. But a bit less.)
James Newman, Britain’s entry, suffered the biggest embarrassment of the night — receiving no points from the judges, and none from the public either. It’s the first time Britain has finished with zero since 2003. Could it have something to do with Britain’s departure from the European Union?
But, also, maybe it doesn’t. Germany, the dominant force in European politics, — received only three votes on Saturday, coming in second-to-last. Spain’s entry won just six votes; the Netherlands, 11.
Eurovision has the world’s greatest voting system
The voting process for Eurovision is convoluted and takes hours, involving juries spread across 39 nations — some nowhere near Europe, like Australia — as well as a separate vote by the public. But on Saturday, the ballot tally was a highlight of the contest. As the votes were announced, the lead switched several times between acts, with France and Switzerland seeming to be likely winners at first, before Iceland came into contention, and Italy stormed through with huge public support. It might be complicated, but perhaps other major prize ceremonies, like the Grammy Awards, should consider adopting such systems and getting the public involved, too.
FRANZ JOSEF LAND, Russia — Chunky green trucks carry Bastion anti-ship missiles that can be prepared for launch in just five minutes. A barracks building, sealed off from the elements like a space station, accommodates 150 or so soldiers. And a new runway can handle fighter jets, two of which recently buzzed the North Pole.
Franz Josef Land, a jumble of glacier-covered islands in the Arctic Ocean named after a Austro-Hungarian emperor, was until a few years ago mostly uninhabited, home to polar bears, walruses, sea birds and little else. But thanks to a warming climate, all that is changing, and quickly.
Nowhere on Earth has climate change been so pronounced as in the polar regions. The warming has led to drastic reductions in sea ice, opening up the Arctic to ships during the summer months and exposing Russia to new security threats.
Arctic Council, a diplomatic club of nations, including the United States, that share interests in the region.
National Snow and Ice Data Center said last year. The ocean has lost nearly a million square miles of ice and is expected to be mostly ice-free in the summertime, including at the North Pole, by around the middle of the century.
wrote of Russia’s problem of disappearing ice.
Lt. Col. Balabeg A. Eminov is the commander of the anti-ship battery and other facilities on Franz Josef Land, called the Trefoil Base. “The main question in the Arctic is the limited accessibility for ships, because of ice,” he said. “Now the area of open water is increasing, and with it the area for ship activity.”
published last year. The latest U.S. military strategy for the Arctic, published in 2019, refers euphemistically to vanishing ice as the “changing physical environment.”
father of the Russian Navy, and oil paintings of sailing ships in battle.
Moored at its base in Murmansk Fjord, the Peter the Great was also visited by flocks of sea gulls, which flapped around its gray-painted radar masts and over the 20 launch tubes for anti-ship missiles. Sailors with side arms stood watch by the gangplank, seemingly oblivious to the cold rain lashing their faces.
Elsewhere in Murmansk Fjord, and not shown to reporters, is another dimension of the Russian military buildup: a secretive program to train seals and beluga whales for as-yet unknown missions. Satellite images have revealed their sea pens at a special operations site. Two years ago, a trained beluga wearing a mysterious harness, possibly an escapee, turned up in Norway and was nicknamed Whaldimir.
posted the footage online. The United States this month sailed the U.S.S. New Mexico, a Virginia-class submarine, into Tromso, Norway, for a rare call at a civilian port.
In the same vein, the tour for foreign journalists to some of Russia’s most remote and secretive military facilities in the Arctic Ocean seemed intended to highlight the country’s capabilities.
“Inviting journalists to come look at these modernized, reinvigorated Cold War sites is all about signaling,” said Marisol Maddox, an Arctic analyst at the Polar Institute of the Woodrow Wilson Center, a research organization in Washington.
Russia, she said, wants to keep up its “strongman persona” in an era of climate change.
WASHINGTON — President Biden has maintained his public support toward Israel even as he adopted a somewhat sharper private tone with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a calculus shaped by Mr. Biden’s longtime relationship with the Israeli leader as well as by growing hopes that Israel’s military operations against Hamas are nearing an end.
In a phone call on Monday, Mr. Biden warned Mr. Netanyahu that he could fend off criticism of the Gaza strikes for only so long, according to two people familiar with the call. That conversation was said to be significantly stronger than an official summary released by the White House. It affirmed Israel’s right to self-defense and did not repeat calls by many congressional Democrats for an immediate cease-fire.
That phone call and others since the fighting started last week reflect Mr. Biden and Mr. Netanyahu’s complicated 40-year relationship. It began when Mr. Netanyahu was the deputy chief of mission at the Israeli Embassy in Washington and Mr. Biden was a young senator with a passion for foreign affairs. Since then, they have rarely seen eye to eye, but have forged an occasionally chummy working relationship through seven American presidencies — Mr. Netanyahu has been prime minister for four of them — and raging political battles over the Iran nuclear deal and Israeli settlement policy.
Today, that relationship is as complicated as ever. Mr. Biden’s juggling act on Israel, always a challenge for an American president, is especially difficult given that Democrats are no longer solidly in Israel’s corner.
Palestinian grievances — and that his approach has less to do with the military situation on the ground than with domestic politics and his broader foreign policy agenda, including nuclear talks with Iran.
For his part, Mr. Netanyahu is fighting for his political life at home while trying to sustain support for his country in Washington. With Mr. Biden now in the Oval Office, the men are again trying to sustain mutual trust amid larger forces driving them apart.
Martin S. Indyk, a former United States ambassador to Israel, said that Mr. Biden had bought himself private space to persuade Mr. Netanyahu to wind down the strikes in Gaza, which were launched in retaliation for Hamas’s indiscriminate rocket attacks on Israeli cities. Mr. Indyk also said that Mr. Biden was trying to get the Israeli leader to agree to a cease-fire “by making clear publicly that he was in Israel’s corner, that Israel has a right to defend itself, and that he has Netanyahu’s back.”
“That was very important for the moment that has now come, in which he has to turn to Netanyahu and say, ‘Time to wrap it up,’” Mr. Indyk said.
Mr. Biden and Mr. Netanyahu have been through countless highs and lows together.
After Mr. Netanyahu faced his first electoral defeat, in 1999, Mr. Biden sent him a letter, praising him for having shown political courage during talks with the Palestinians that were hosted by the United States in Maryland. Mr. Netanyahu replied, and gratefully noted that Mr. Biden was the only American politician to write to him after his defeat.
approving new housing construction in East Jerusalem, a setback to Obama administration efforts to mediate Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.
Obama White House officials were enraged, and several urged Mr. Biden to skip a planned dinner with Mr. Netanyahu in Tel Aviv and leave the country immediately. Mr. Biden disagreed, and chose to confront the Israeli leader in private while minimizing the public discord, betting that such an approach would be more effective, people familiar with the episode said.
longtime view that foreign policy is driven by personal relationships, he has repeatedly made clear over the years that his sometimes exasperation with Mr. Netanyahu’s right-wing policies in such moments never ruptured the men’s bond.
Mr. Biden has spoken publicly about how he once sent Mr. Netanyahu a photograph with the inscription, “Bibi, I don’t agree with a damn thing you say, but I love you.”
And after tensions between Mr. Netanyahu and the Obama White House over Iran’s nuclear program burst into public view in late 2014, Mr. Biden, during a speech to a Jewish American group, offered assurances that he and the Israeli leader were “still buddies.”
Golda Meir, on the eve of an attack on Israel by a coalition of Arab states in what is known as the Yom Kippur War.
The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
Saying he was shaken by the scale of the threat to Israel, Mr. Biden has called that “one of the most consequential meetings I’ve ever had in my life.”
In the years since, Mr. Biden has repeatedly underscored his devotion to the country. “I am a Zionist,” he told an Israeli television station in 2007. “You don’t have to a Jew to be a Zionist.”
Michael Oren, who served as Israel’s ambassador to Washington from 2009 to 2013, said that in an Obama administration where many senior officials mistrusted Mr. Netanyahu’s Likud government and shut out Mr. Oren, Mr. Biden served as his main interlocutor.
“He exhibited, I thought, great insight into the personality of Benjamin Netanyahu,” Mr. Oren said. He said Mr. Biden saw that tensions between President Barack Obama and Mr. Netanyahu made for “a very flammable environment that he did his best to ease down.”
Israeli-Palestinian conflict with dim prospects of resolution at a time when he has been focused on other foreign policy priorities, including climate change, countering China and restoring the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.
“I think the Biden administration was caught a bit off-guard here,” said Sanam Vakil, the deputy director of the Middle East and North Africa program at the London-based think tank Chatham House. “It has taken them a few days to mobilize and find their footing.”
On Tuesday, the White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, told reporters aboard Air Force One that Mr. Biden “has been doing this long enough to know that the best way to end an international conflict is typically not to debate it in public.”
“Sometimes diplomacy needs to happen behind the scenes — it needs to be quiet, and we don’t read out every component,” she said.
Hady Amr.
expectation and hope” that the conflict was nearing an end. More than 100 innocents have been killed in the fighting since then.
Asked why Mr. Biden has not publicly called for a cease-fire, as have dozens of congressional Democrats, a senior administration official said that doing so could be counterproductive and prolong the violence. Some analysts agree that such calls may inspire defiance among Mr. Netanyahu, his political allies and the Israeli public.
Mr. Oren said that he believed that Mr. Biden’s publicly supportive posture toward Israel, which has drawn an increasing number of complaints from congressional Democrats, is motivated in part by indirect negotiations with Iran this month in Vienna that are aimed at restoring the nuclear deal with Tehran, another of Mr. Biden’s top priorities.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if, in the aftermath of this conflict, the Biden administration would say to the Israeli government: ‘You see how we supported your right to defend yourself against Hamas? Trust us to ensure your defense as we renew the Iran nuclear deal,’” Mr. Oren said.
criminal charges, and he has struggled to form a governing coalition that would prevent him from the likelihood of losing power for the first time since 2009.
LONDON — When the Eurovision Song Contest was canceled last March because of the coronavirus pandemic, Vasil Garvanliev, North Macedonia’s entry, was distraught.
“My whole life, I’d been working my butt off to get there and my journey didn’t even take off,” Garvanliev, 36, said in a telephone interview. “I was devastated.”
For Garvanliev — and the event’s hundreds of millions of fans — Eurovision is far more than a glitzy, high-camp song contest. “It’s the Olympics of singing,” Garvanliev said.
Last March he sat on his bed feeling depressed, he remembered, before picking up a keyboard to try to console himself. He started picking out a gentle melody on the instrument, then lyrics popped into his head. “Wait, it won’t be long,” he sung, “trust your heart and just stay strong.”
Abba and Lordi, a Finnish heavy metal act whose members dress as monsters.
The arena will be at 20 percent capacity, with just 3,500 people in the audience cheering the contestants on, while remaining seated to lessen the risk of coronavirus spreading. The event is officially part of a series of Dutch government trials to see how to run large events in a safe way. The contestants will all have made prerecorded versions of their songs in case they catch Covid-19 and are unable to perform.
But perhaps the most unusual aspect is that all the returning contestants will be performing a different song than the one they had planned for the 2020 event. In a competition known for one-hit wonders, who disappear from view almost as soon as the contest ends, this year’s contestants have to prove they don’t fit that pattern.
Here I Stand” wouldn’t fall into that trap.
Think About Things,” a catchy disco number about his newborn child.
By the time Eurovision was canceled, the song’s video had been watched millions of times on YouTube. Soon, it was going viral on Twitter and TikTok too, after families started performing variations of the video’s dance routine while stuck at home in lockdown.
“It changed my life, that song,” Freyr said in a video interview. Before the pandemic, Freyr generally only got booked for shows in Iceland, he said. Suddenly he was selling out tours across Europe.
10 Years,” this time about his marriage (“How does it keep getting better?” he sings in the chorus). He felt he had to keep the track similar in style to “Think About Things,” since Icelanders had voted for a fun disco tune to represent them at the competition, he said. It still took 12 attempts to come up with a new song he liked, he added.
The track’s so far not gone viral, but Freyr said that didn’t bother him. “I didn’t go to try and recreate the success, because I know it’s impossible to predict something like that,” he said. “Luck has to be part of it.”
Four other Eurovision returnees said in interviews that they found the pandemic to be the biggest hurdle to writing a new hit. “For the first three or four months of the pandemic, I just didn’t do any writing at all,” said Jessica Alyssa Cerro, Australia’s entry, who performs as Montaigne.
“I sort of got to November and was like, ‘Hmm, I should probably start working on that Eurovision song, huh?’” she added.
Jeangu Macrooy, the Netherlands’ entry, said in a telephone interview that he similarly struggled. “I was getting no inspiration — I was just sitting inside,” he said.
Then, in December when he was trying to write entries for the contest, a host of thoughts and feelings around George Floyd’s murder and the subsequent resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement started bubbling up inside him.
Birth of a New Age,” an uplifting track about being “the rage that melts the chains.” Macrooy said he hoped it would speak to everyone standing up for their rights now, whether people of color, L.G.B.T.Q. people or the otherwise marginalized. The chorus of “You can’t break me” is sung in Sranan Tongo, the lingua franca of his native Suriname in South America.
Technicolour,” which she recorded in March.
with thousands of new cases of coronavirus currently being reported every day. “It would have been so bad if I was the person who brought coronavirus back to Australia, where we’re sitting in stadiums, having a good time dancing and touching each other,” she said.
Even without attending, she still has a story to “tell my grandkids about,” she said. She’s the only Eurovision contestant ever to have missed the event twice because of a pandemic.
LONDON — An ugly spat over post-Brexit fishing rights has erupted into a stranger-than-fiction maritime standoff between Britain and France, as naval ships from both countries converged on Thursday in the waters off the island of Jersey, where dozens of French fishing boats were threatening to blockade a port.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson dispatched two British Navy vessels, the H.M.S. Tamar and the H.M.S. Severn, on Wednesday evening as a “precautionary measure,” according to his office.
On Thursday, France deployed two naval patrol boats near Jersey, about 14 miles off the coast of France to “ensure the safety of navigation” as well as the “safety of human life at sea” in case the situation deteriorated, according to a spokeswoman for the French maritime authorities in charge of the English Channel.
The naval deployments escalated a dispute that has simmered for weeks, after French fishing crews accused the local authorities in Jersey of imposing burdensome new requirements to allow them to continue to fish in Jersey’s coastal waters, following Britain’s split with the European Union in January.
Jersey, the largest of the Channel Islands, is not part of the United Kingdom but is a crown dependency, a special status that gives it self-governing rights, including its own legislative assembly, as well as fiscal and legal systems.
Dozens of French fishing boats have massed near the port of St. Helier, the capital of Jersey, threatening to block access to it. A French government official warned earlier this week that France could cut off the power supply to Jersey, which is delivered through underwater cables from France.
The dispute, which flared unexpectedly on the eve of regional elections in Britain, presented Mr. Johnson with a tailor-made opportunity to flex British military muscles in defense of British fishing rights, which were a sticking point throughout the difficult trade negotiations between Britain and the European Union.
“The prime minister underlined his unwavering support for Jersey,” a spokesman for Downing Street told the British news media on Wednesday. Mr. Johnson, the spokesman said, called for a “de-escalation in tensions” and said any blockade would be “completely unjustified.”
Relations between Britain and France had already soured on a range of issues as Britain and the European Union divorced. President Emmanuel Macron of France raised doubts about the efficacy of a coronavirus vaccine developed at the University of Oxford and produced by AstraZeneca, a British-based drugmaker, prompting charges of “vaccine nationalism.”
In December, Mr. Macron briefly cut off access to freight shipments to and from Britain to prevent a fast-spreading variant of the virus that originated in Britain from leaping across the English Channel. The British tabloids pounced.
“Kick in the Baubles,” said a headline in the Sun, suggesting that France was conspiring to ruin the Christmas holiday for people in Britain. “Monsieur Roadblock Gives Way,” said a headline in the Daily Mail after Mr. Macron agreed to lift the ban, subject to a virus testing program for truck drivers.
Fishing was one of the thorniest issues when Britain negotiated its new trade agreement with the European Union, which came into force in January. The deal ended decades during which Britain’s fishing fleet was under the same system as France, with their catches negotiated regularly among the member countries.
Many in Britain’s fishing industry supported Brexit because they believed that for decades, they had been forced to share too much of the fish caught in Britain’s coastal waters with continental crews.
But the agreement sealed by Mr. Johnson and negotiators in Brussels just before Christmas was a disappointment to British fishing communities, who had been promised a “sea of opportunities” by Brexit supporters.
Instead, the increase in annual quotas for British fishing crews was initially modest. And because Britain has left Europe’s single market for goods, British fish and shellfish require more documentation and checks when sent to markets in continental Europe, making them more difficult and expensive to export.
The trade agreement also addressed the complicated issue of fishing around Jersey. The island has the right to impose its own licensing requirements and has left French fishermen complaining of difficulties in receiving the authorization they need to fish in waters they have worked for decades.
Fishing rights have long provoked acute tensions between Britain and its neighbors. From the 1950s to the 1970s, Britain was embroiled in a confrontation with Iceland that became known as the “cod wars.” At its peak, 37 Royal Naval vessels were mobilized to protect British trawlers in disputed waters.
While these clashes have not mutated into broader military conflicts, analyst and diplomats said there was always a risk of accidental escalation. Others said it served to show the loose ends left by the Brexit process.
“This is the kind of old-fashioned dispute that the European Union was created to prevent,” said Simon Fraser, the former top civil servant in Britain’s Foreign Office. “When you leave the European Union, you risk reopening them.”
“It’s also an extraordinarily retrogressive thing to be fighting over fish in the English Channel, at a time when we’re hosting the G-7 summit and trying to talk about a new global role for Britain,” Mr. Fraser said.
THIMPHU, Bhutan — The Lunana area of Bhutan is remote even by the standards of an isolated Himalayan kingdom: It covers an area about twice the size of New York City, borders far western China, includes glacial lakes and some of the world’s highest peaks, and is inaccessible by car.
Still, most people living there have already received a coronavirus vaccine.
Vials of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine arrived last month by helicopter and were distributed by health workers, who walked from village to village through snow and ice. Vaccinations proceeded in the area’s 13 settlements even after yaks damaged some of the field tents that volunteers had set up for patients.
“I got vaccinated first to prove to my fellow villagers that the vaccine does not cause death and is safe to take,” Pema, a village leader in Lunana who is in his 50s and goes by one name, said by telephone. “After that, everyone here took the jab.”
emphasized its citizens’ well-being over national prosperity, had administered a first vaccine dose to more than 478,000 people, over 60 percent of its population. The Health Ministry said this month that more than 93 percent of eligible adults had received their first shots.
according to a New York Times database.
That rate was ahead of those of the United Kingdom and the United States, more than seven times that of neighboring India and nearly six times the global average. Bhutan is also ahead of several other geographically isolated countries with small populations, including Iceland and the Maldives.
Dasho Dechen Wangmo, Bhutan’s health minister, attributed its success to “leadership and guidance” from the country’s king, public solidarity, a general absence of vaccine hesitancy, and a primary health care system that “enabled us to take the services even to the most remote parts of the country.”
“Being a small country with a population of just over 750,000, a two-week vaccination campaign was doable,” Ms. Dechen Wangmo said in an email. “Minor logistic issues were faced during the vaccination but were all manageable.”
Serum Institute of India, the world’s largest vaccine producer. Bhutan’s government has said it plans to administer second doses about eight to 12 weeks after the first round, in line with guidelines for the AstraZeneca vaccine.
according to the World Health Organization. Immunization levels in recent years have been above 95 percent.
But Bhutan’s health system is “hardly self-sustainable,” and patients who need expensive or sophisticated treatments are often sent to India or Thailand at the government’s expense, said Dr. Yot Teerawattananon, a Thai health economist at the National University of Singapore.
A government committee in Bhutan meets once a week to make decisions about which patients to send overseas for treatment, Dr. Yot said. He said the committee — which focuses on brain and heart surgery, kidney transplants and cancer treatment — was known informally as the “death panel.”
What You Need to Know About the Johnson & Johnson Vaccine Pause in the U.S.
On April 13, 2021, U.S. health agencies called for an immediate pause in the use of Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose Covid-19 vaccine after six recipients in the United States developed a rare disorder involving blood clots within one to three weeks of vaccination.
All 50 states, Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico temporarily halted or recommended providers pause the use of the vaccine. The U.S. military, federally run vaccination sites and a host of private companies, including CVS, Walgreens, Rite Aid, Walmart and Publix, also paused the injections.
Fewer than one in a million Johnson & Johnson vaccinations are now under investigation. If there is indeed a risk of blood clots from the vaccine — which has yet to be determined — that risk is extremely low. The risk of getting Covid-19 in the United States is far higher.
The pause could complicate the nation’s vaccination efforts at a time when many states are confronting a surge in new cases and seeking to address vaccine hesitancy.
Johnson & Johnson has also decided to delay the rollout of its vaccine in Europe amid concerns over rare blood clots, dealing another blow to Europe’s inoculation push. South Africa, devastated by a more contagious virus variant that emerged there, suspended use of the vaccine as well. Australia announced it would not purchase any doses.
“I don’t think they could cope with the surge of severe Covid cases if that happened, so it is important for them to prioritize Covid vaccination,” he said, referring to Bhutan’s health authorities.
Bhutan has reported fewer than 1,000 coronavirus infections and only one death. Its borders, tight by global standards even before the pandemic, have been closed for a year with few exceptions, and anyone who enters the country must quarantine for 21 days.
received his first vaccine dose last month while in quarantine after a visit to Bangladesh. He has been supporting the vaccination effort in recent weeks on his official Facebook page.
“My days are dotted with virtual meetings on numerous areas that need attention, as I closely follow the vaccination campaign on the ground,” Dr. Tshering, a surgeon, wrote in early April. “So far, with your prayers and blessings, everything is going well.”
The economy in Lunana depends on animal husbandry and harvests of a so-called caterpillar fungus that is prized as an aphrodisiac in China. People speak Dzongkha, the national language, and a local dialect.
Last year, the drama “Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom” became the second film ever selected to represent Bhutan at the Academy Awards. It was filmed using solar batteries, and its cast included local villagers.
Lunana’s headman, Kaka, who goes by one name, said the most important part of the vaccination campaign was not on the ground, but in the sky.
“If there hadn’t been a chopper,” he said, “getting the vaccines would have been an issue, since there’s no access road.”
Chencho Dema reported from Thimphu, Bhutan, and Mike Ives from Hong Kong.
If 2020 was the summer of the pandemic-enforced road trip, many people seem to be hoping that 2021 will be the summer they can travel overseas. But that’s a big “if.” Roadblocks abound, among them, the rise of variant cases in popular destinations like Europe and confusion about the role that vaccine “passports” will play as people begin crossing borders. The recent pause on Johnson & Johnson’s coronavirus vaccine adds a new wrinkle.
Still, there is reason for optimism. The number of vaccine doses administered each day in the United States has tripled in the last few months, and President Biden has said the United States is still on track to vaccinate every American adult who wants it by the end of May. Globally, the number of shots has been rising, with more than 840 million vaccines administered worldwide.
Currently, Americans are restricted from entering many countries for nonessential trips. Travelers can check the U.S. State Department website for specific country entry restrictions, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website to view recommendations for international travelers (vaccinated and unvaccinated), and the C.D.C. COVID Data Tracker to monitor country conditions.
Iceland announced on March 16 that it would allow all vaccinated travelers into the country, Delta Air Lines followed soon after with an announcement that in May it would resume its Iceland routes from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport and Minneapolis St. Paul Airport, and offer a new route from Boston.
it’s been reported that the Biden administration may cancel existing travel restrictions for foreign nationals coming from Britain, Europe and Canada, around mid-May.
Still, the market is very much in flux, Mr. Grant said, so even though airlines may be increasing their flight schedules, they will continue to adjust to demand, possibly consolidating some of the flights.
United Airlines plans to increase international flights, but will still be operating just about half of its 2019 schedule. Among the flights it is eyeing are those between Chicago and Tokyo’s Haneda airport and Tel Aviv. The company also plans to increase service from Los Angeles to Sydney and Tokyo Narita.
Beach destinations that are open to Americans have seen an increase in demand and United is scheduling 90 more flights per week to or from the Caribbean, Mexico, Central and South America than it had in May 2019.
Patrick Quayle, the vice president of the United Airlines’ international network, said the company had been adding more flights to countries that were open, but was uncertain when additional destinations like Canada — which is currently closed to American tourists and which has recently seen a rise in cases — would be added to that list. United is trying to be nimble, he said, so “if something were to open up, we can put our aircraft in the sky quickly.”
At American Airlines, new routes are planned this summer from New York to Athens and Tel Aviv, and from Miami to Suriname and Tel Aviv. (Israel has announced it would allow some vaccinated tourists into the country beginning May 23.) American also announced it was restarting a number of flights to Europe. Beyond that, the company won’t speculate on where air travel will open next.
Travel-Ready Center allows passengers with booked tickets to view country-specific entry requirements and schedule tests, and will soon allow customers to upload and store their vaccination records on the website before they travel. American’s online travel tool on the company’s website already allows passengers to store required documents like proof of negative coronavirus tests.
One airline that has been focusing on flights between the United States and international destinations is not a U.S. carrier, but a Middle Eastern one: Emirates. The United Arab Emirates opened up to leisure and business travelers last July and Emirates is already offering direct service to Dubai from Los Angeles, San Francisco, Dallas, Houston, Chicago, Washington, D.C., New York and Boston. Passengers can also connect from there to other destinations in the Middle East, Africa and West Asia. The company recently announced it would resume its flight between Newark and Athens on June 1.
health and cleaning protocols they put in place during the pandemic. Some have been adding on-site virus testing. In addition, so-called “touchless technology,” like phone apps for ordering food, will continue to be rolled out. A report by Medallia Zingle, a communications software maker, found that 77 percent of consumers surveyed said the amount of in-person interaction required at a business will factor into their decision on whether or not they visit that business.
Marriott, one of the world’s largest international hotel companies, with some 7,600 hotels under 30 brands, has implemented a set of practices it calls Commitment to Clean that includes sanitizing properties with hospital-grade disinfectants, using air-purifying systems and spreading out lobby furniture to facilitate social distancing. Some properties offer free coronavirus testing.
Recently the company announced a pilot program introducing self-serve check-in kiosks that create room keys and allow guests to bypass the front desk. It is also adding more “grab and go” food options.
Hyatt, another major international brand, is also continuing to focus on cleanliness. Currently, it is working with the Global Biorisk Advisory Council and Cleveland Clinic to create its Global Care and Cleanliness Commitment. Those practices will “remain in place during the pandemic and beyond,” Amy Weinberg, Hyatt’s senior vice president of loyalty, brand marketing and consumer insights, wrote in an email.
its Hôtel du Palais in Biarritz, France, one of its last remaining closed properties. Almost all Hyatt properties have been open since last December, and in February the company began arranging for guests staying at Hyatt resorts in Latin America who planned to travel back to the United States to get free on-site coronavirus testing.
IHG’s Kimpton brand with 73 hotels in 11 countries plans on modifying its protocols this summer where it feels they are safe and local ordinances allow — for example, bringing back the manager-hosted social hour, a guest favorite.
The four Kimpton hotels in Britain that closed because of the pandemic are currently scheduled to reopen by the end of May. A new Kimpton property in Bangkok that opened in October of 2020 to local guests will welcome international travelers this fall. The company also plans to open a new hotel in Bali and one in Paris later this year.
“Hoteliers are chafing at the bit” to reopen and are able to do so quickly, said Robin Rossman, the managing director of the hospitality analytics company STR. The global hotel sector, though, will likely take up to two years to make a full return, he said.
Geographic Expeditions, which did not run any trips last summer, reported that its bookings have picked up significantly in the past few months. It plans to run 20 international trips this summer, both to familiar destinations such as the Galápagos, and some off the beaten path, including Pakistan and Namibia. There are only about 25 percent fewer guests signed up now than there were for 2019 summer trips, according to the chief executive, Brady Binstadt, and they are “spending more than before — they’re splurging on that nicer hotel suite or charter flight or special experience.”
The company chose its first destinations based on entry requirements and client interest and then adjusted itineraries to avoid crowds, minimize internal flights and make sure guests had access to required testing. One expedition required flying a Covid-19 test into a safari lodge in Botswana via helicopter.
A guest recently moved a Geographic Expeditions trip planned for 2022 departure forward to 2021. The company hopes this will become a trend.
Abercrombie & Kent restarted its small-group and private trips last fall and early winter to places like Egypt, Costa Rica and Tanzania, and is continuing to expand choices as countries open up. “There’s been a noticeable spike in people calling who have had their first vaccine,” said Stefanie Schmudde, the vice-president of product development and operations. Bookings in March rose more than 50 percent over bookings in February, according to the company.
Ms. Schmudde monitors global travel conditions intently, and can rattle off names of countries that have been open to tourists for a few months and those she expects to open soon. She predicts Japan and China will open up this fall, but does not expect Europe to welcome many visitors any time soon.
Denmark on Wednesday became the first country to plan to permanently stop administering the AstraZeneca vaccine, a month after suspending its use following reports that a small number of recipients had developed a rare but serious blood-clotting disorder.
The director general of the country’s health authority, Soeren Brostroem, said Denmark was able to halt use of the vaccine because it had the pandemic under control and could rely on two other vaccines, from Pfizer and Moderna.
The Danish announcement is another setback for the AstraZeneca shot, which is easy to store and relatively cheap, and was expected to be the foundation of vaccination campaigns around the world.
The country initially suspended the use of the vaccine on March 11, along with Iceland and Norway. Several other European countries, including France, Germany and Italy, followed suit last month.
later recommended that countries keep using the vaccine, saying its benefits far outweighed any potential risks for most people.
Last week, though, the European regulator listed blood clots as a potential very rare side effect of the vaccine.
Several countries that had paused and restarted use of the vaccine have since said they would stop using it in younger people. Britain, which has administered around 20 million AstraZeneca doses, said it would offer alternative vaccines to people under 30.
“Based on the scientific findings, our overall assessment is there is a real risk of severe side effects associated with using the Covid-19 vaccine from AstraZeneca,” Dr. Brostroem, the Danish health official, said in a statement. “We have, therefore, decided to remove the vaccine from our vaccination program.”
“If Denmark were in a completely different situation and in the midst of a violent third outbreak, for example, and a health care system under pressure,” he added, “then I would not hesitate to use the vaccine, even if there were rare but severe complications associated with using it.”
Danish health officials said that they might reintroduce the AstraZeneca vaccine “if the situation changes.”
Public health officials have warned that pausing administration of vaccines like AstraZeneca’s or Johnson & Johnson’s could do more harm than good. They note that among seven million people vaccinated with the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine in the United States, six women had developed the rare blood clots — fewer than one in one million. It is not yet known whether the vaccine had anything to do with the clots, but even if it did, the risk is smaller than that of getting struck by lightning in a given year (one in 500,000).
Denmark, which has a population of 5.8 million, has managed to contain the pandemic better than its neighbor Sweden or many other European countries. As of Wednesday, Denmark had recorded 2,447 Covid-related deaths.
Almost one million people in the country have received at least a first dose of a vaccine, 77 percent of them the one from Pfizer, according to Denmark’s Serum Institute. Around 15 percent received a first dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine before the authorities suspended its use last month, and the remaining 8 percent received the Moderna vaccine.
The country’s health authorities said that people who received a first dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine would be offered a different vaccine for their second dose.
